Morrison & Foerster
| Morrison & Foerster | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Headquarters |
425 Market Street San Francisco, California United States |
| No. of offices | 17 |
| No. of attorneys | 999 |
| Major practice areas | Mergers and acquisitions, litigation and arbitration, corporate finance, corporate restructuring, securities, banking, project finance, energy and infrastructure, antitrust, tax, intellectual property, life sciences |
| Key people | Larren M. Nashelsky (Chair) |
| Revenue | $963.5 million (2012)[1] |
| Date founded | 1883 |
| Founder | Alexander Morrison |
| Company type | Limited liability partnership |
| Website | |
| www.mofo.com | |
Morrison & Foerster LLP (MoFo) is a large, full-service law firm with approximately 1,000 attorneys in 17 offices in the United States, Asia and Europe. Its attorneys have experience in a broad range of practice areas, including corporate transactions, financial services and regulation, intellectual property prosecution and litigation, technology law and privacy. Morrison & Foerster was the chief international counsel for the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games. Furthermore, in 2013, Morrison Foerster represented Apple in its successful lawsuit against Samsung for patent infringement.
History
The firm was founded in 1883 by Alexander Francis Morrison, a graduate of the UC Hastings College of Law, in San Francisco. It wasn't until the early 1960s that the firm ventured away from Northern California, following one of its major San Francisco clients, Crocker National Bank, which opened a Los Angeles office. In 1987, the firm merged with New York firm Parker Auspitz Neesemann & Delehanty. That same year, MoFo became one of the first American law firms to practice in Japan, unveiling a Tokyo office. A 2001 joint enterprise with Japanese firm Ito & Mitomi made Morrison & Foerster one of the few successful Japanese law practices within an international law firm.[2][3] MoFo was also one of the first U.S.-based law firms in China.
Morrison & Foerster has many high-profile clients, including Apple, Bank of America, Hitachi, Intel, Lucasfilm, Nikon, Oracle, Toshiba, Sprint Nextel and Yahoo. The firm represented Hitachi in the $4.3 billion sale of its hard disk drive and data storage business, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, to Western Digital, one of the biggest tech deals announced in 2011. The firm also represented Intel in its $7.7 billion acquisition of McAfee, Inc., the world's largest dedicated security technology company. The McAfee acquisition is the largest M&A deal in Intel's history.
Rankings and Awards
Morrison & Foerster is highly ranked in several 2015 Vault practice areas, including clean tech/renewable energy (#1), technology (#3), intellectual property (#5), tax (#14), private equity (#18) and securities (#19).[4] Vault also ranks MoFo as the #1 law firm in Northern California as well as the U.S. law firm with the #1 summer associate program for law students.
Morrison & Foerster was recently named Chambers Global's 2013 USA Law Firm of the Year. The firm has been consistently ranked on the American Lawyer's A-List. In 2005 the firm was ranked #11, in 2006 #6, in 2007 #16, in 2008 #20, in 2009 #8, and in 2011 #13.[5]
Offices
As of January 2015, Morrison & Foerster has 17 offices.
Noted professionals
- Drew S. Days, III, who served as the U.S. Solicitor General from 1993 to 1996, and who currently is of counsel
- Beth Brinkmann, who was the Assistant to the Solicitor General of the U.S. from 1993 until 2001, and who until 2009 was a partner
- Tony West, currently Acting Associate Attorney General of the United States
- Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently of counsel at the firm and also a commissioner on the United States Sentencing Commission
- Crystal McKellar, former child actress who played Becky Slater in the hit series The Wonder Years, former associate with the firm[6]
- Shirley Hufstedler, first U.S. Secretary of Education from 1979-1981, who currently is a senior of counsel.
- James M. Peck, who served as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for Southern District of New York - presided over the Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy and is currently Global Head of the firm's Business Restructuring and Insolvency practice
- Keith Wetmore, served as Chairman of Morrison & Foerster from 2002 to 2012 and named among the Top 50 Big Law Innovators in the Last 50 Years.[7]
Nickname
The firm's nickname is "MoFo." During the dot-com era of the 1990s, when it was fashionable for American companies to appear irreverent, the nickname was prominently featured in the firm's advertising, both online and offline. It gained further notoriety through a bit by Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. Leno joked that the firm's clients could shout, "Get me my MoFo lawyer!"
Additionally, the home board game Trivial Pursuit has a question circulating in current versions asking "What four-letter nickname is used by the law firm Morrison & Foerster?"
References
- ↑ "The 2012 Global 100: Most Revenue". The American Lawyer. 2012-09-28. Retrieved 2014-03-08.
- ↑ "事務所について | モリソン・フォースター外国法事務弁護士事務所 伊藤 見富法律事務所（外国法共同事業事務所）". Mofo.jp. Retrieved 2014-03-08.
- ↑ Brennan, Tom (15 July 2013). "Foreign Firms Stumble Going Local in Japan". The Asian Lawyer. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
- ↑ Vault.com Morrison & Foerster LLP profile
- ↑ "The A-List 2011 | The American Lawyer". Law.com. Retrieved 2014-03-08.
- ↑ "Crystal Scripps McKellar". Morrison & Foerster. Archived from the original on 2012-02-24.
- ↑ Beck, Susan (29 July 2013). "The American Lawyer's Top 50 Innovators". The American Lawyer. Retrieved 1 April 2014.